


The Beast

by AllennellA



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romantic Friendship, Stress Relief, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllennellA/pseuds/AllennellA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiichirou knows the beast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beast

Aiichirou knows the beast.  
  
Aiichirou knows the beast. The beast crawls along his elder's back, claws squeezing his heart. He knows the beast because the beast used to slither across his skin too, used to bite until he cried, used to wring him dry of energy.  
  
The beast is in the line of Rin's sagging shoulders, in powerful muscle gone tight and yet limp, in twisted hair around gnarled fingers. The beast crawls and slithers underneath Rin's face, reddening his eyes and darkening the bags underneath, grabbing ahold of his mouth and curving it downward into a snarl. The beast owns him.  
  
Rin wipes away the sweat of the beast, feeds it with his tears and with every extra lap he does in the swimming pool and every extra hour of studying in the classroom. Rin intimately knows the beast. He relishes the beast, accepts the beast, does not fight it.  
  
Aiichirou knows the beast, and he does his best to fight it for his senpai, because someone needs to fight it. It is killing Rin, and so Aiichirou fights it.  
  
Aiichirou brings comforters, covered in cutesy sharks and bubbles because why not; brings hot chocolate and tea and coffee and sometimes juice or coconut water; brings cartons of ice cream with fudge or buckets of popcorn or tiny strawberry cakes that Rin will never admits he loves from the café down a block from the academy; brings a laptop and a stack of DVDs (which he carefully makes sure are all movies and not like that one time he accidentally brought a stack of music CDs instead), although Rin enjoyed those too; brings his iPod because the music wasn't always a mistake; brings stuffed animals so Rin can wrap his tired arms around something; brings anything he can think of. Mostly Aiichirou brings him reassuring words and touches and looks and smiles.  
  
The beast rears its ugly head often, and so Aiichirou fights it often. He doesn't always get kind words from Rin when he's subdued it, once it's curled up carefully in the back of his senpai's mind, forgotten, but he is not fighting it to receive a reward. He does not want recognition.  
  
He wants something simple; honest happiness from his roommate. Hard work is something Aiichirou acknowledges and knows well, and he sees that it is the very basis of Rin. Without hard work, without pain, without the beast, Rin is nothing to himself. He essentially becomes worthless in his own opinion, so Aiichirou has accepted that the beast will never truly go away, that he cannot end the battle, so he has settled for genuine happiness.  
  
The beast, stoked down for yet another day, lets Rin wrap his arms around Aiichirou, mouth sleepily at his neck, stick his stupidly cold nose right in the warm spot behind Aiichirou's ear as the sound of Howl's Moving Castle is a dim murmur in the flickering light of the laptop screen.  
  
They are wrapped up in their favorite comforter, just a bit worn and rough from love, covered in yes, sharks and bubbles, pillows stacked around them on the top bunk. Rin likes the top bunk when Aiichirou creates a little heaven up there, likes it because Aiichirou and his material wealth are rarities in his spartan life, likes it because Aiichirou is willing to be touched however Rin likes. Aiichirou likes this part of fighting the beast, when his roommate is slowly forgetting about the world and the beast visibly lessens its grip in every touch.  
  
Sometimes Aiichirou fantasizes that Rin pulls around, kisses him deeply, says something in English which may be, "I love you," or something like that. It's a pipe dream, so Aiichirou rolls up his his sleeves and thinks, _it's better the way it is, anyway._  
  
Aiichirou smiles a bit. Yes, he has won against the beast before and he is winning now, and while it won't be forever, he can still delight in his victory.


End file.
